Copters' Gunfire Lights Up Iraq

U.s. Launches Attacks Against Insurgents

November 19, 2003|By ALISSA J. RUBIN and PATRICK MCDONNELL Special to the Daily Press

BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Automatic weapon fire pounded from helicopter gunships and dozens of rounds of air-launched cannon fire sounded like a clock's gong in the night Tuesday as the U.S. military conducted operations throughout this Iraqi capital in an effort to root out insurgents.

The offensive, which included some of the strongest firepower used in Baghdad since major combat ended in May, was matched by a similar operations earlier in the day in Tikrit.

They were both part of ongoing military crackdowns in central Iraq, where anti-American insurgent activity has been strongest.

"This is war," Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division based in Ramadi in western Iraq, said during a briefing in Baghdad. "We're going to use a sledgehammer to crush a walnut."

"We're not going to prosecute this war holding one hand behind our back," he added. "We're going to use enough in our arsenal to win this fight."

In northern Iraq, meanwhile, a senior U.S. military official said two survivors of Saturday's crash of a pair of military helicopters, including a pilot, have told investigators that they did not see any threatening ground fire before their copter crashed.

The official, who requested anonymity because the incident is still under investigation, cautioned that their statements do not mean hostile fire had been ruled out as a cause of the crashes, which killed 17 soldiers and injured five.

The cause of incident has been in dispute, with some Iraqi witnesses saying that ground fire brought down one or both aircraft.

The military operations Tuesday in the capital and central Iraq were portrayed by U.S. military officials as an offensive designed to crush the remains of the anti-American insurgency.

Swannack, who commands a broad swath of western Iraq about the size of Wyoming, said that a few months ago commanders might have hesitated in using their heavier weapons, such as AC-130 gunships and precision-guided missiles, but "now there's no-holds bar."

Swannack said resistance had substantially quieted in recent days, with far fewer attacks than in the first month that his division was on the ground. His soldiers have been in the area for two months.

Although there have been many reports of foreign fighters in western Iraq, Swannack said the vast majority of attacks on Americans in his region are the work of people loyal to the former regime of Saddam Hussein and of extremist Sunni Muslims. Just 10 percent of the attacks are done by foreigners, he said.

Swannack hewed forcefully to the idea that the strong-arm approach was winning over Iraqis by eliminating divisive elements.

He said he expected to largely withdraw troops by the first of the year from Ramadi, about 50 miles west of Baghdad, leaving the job of keeping the city secure to local police and civil defense forces.

In the northern Iraq city of Mosul, private memorial services were held Tuesday for victims of Saturday's helicopter crashes, which investigators now believe involved in a catastrophic midair collision.

All 17 soldier who died in the incident were members of the 101st Airborne Division, which is based in the city.

Investigators are looking into enemy fire and poor visibility that night as possible reasons for the crash, said the senior U.S. military official.The two helicopters were on different mission, and investigators are trying to decipher why the aircraft were so close to each other.

"We do think there was a collision," the official said.

"What we don't know is why they collided." It is still unclear if the surviving pilot even knew another helicopter was in the vicinity.

Investigators are theorizing that one helicopter, which was ferrying troops, hit the other in the rear when both were flying about 300 feet above the ground, the official said.

"The mystery is: Why were the helicopters so close?" the officials said.

Whether one pilot failed to see the other helicopter is a central question, but the official noted: "The truth is, we may never know what happened."